[maxhifi]

Back in the 1990s, a family friend who used to be a prospector brought over a Geiger counter. I put on the headphones, and followed the clicks around the house. The one thing which drove it nuts, were the hands on my Zenith AA5 clock radio. Needless to say, the radio was moved well away from my bed, to the other side of the room.

Since exposure to radiation has a time factor, and the intensity falls off by the cube of the distance from the source, I figured that if the clock hands are in a spot which is fairly far away from anywhere I spend significant time, everything should be okay.

Anyhow, I recently bought a Panasonic clock radio with a similar telechron movement to my Zenith. This one, I want to keep close to my bed, and use it regularly.

When I was doing the restore, I removed the hour and minute hands, and put them into the basement in a ziplock bag.

The family friend who possessed the Geiger counter passed away 15 years ago, and the Geiger counter is long gone. Has anyone here looked into the actual hazard posed by radium clock hands? I don't want to be paranoid about it, but at the same time I'm concerned about having a radioactive source which I know made a Geiger counter go nuts right beside my head for 7 hours a day.

Thoughts?

As of now my plan is to try and find some non radioactive hands for the Panasonic. I don't believe that the rest of the radio would be radioactive, with the hands removed?